• DMCA Takedown On Free Software

    From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.misc on Tue Jan 6 21:40:25 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.misc

    Just read this report <https://www.tomshardware.com/software/chinese-semiconductor-outfit-has-linux-mpp-repository-on-github-disabled-after-a-dmca-takedown-request-ffmpeg-team-accuses-it-of-using-libavcodec-code-without-attribution>
    about a DMCA takedown on a GitHub repository belonging to Rockchip.

    The copyright takedown was requested by the FFmpeg project. Their code
    is open source, of course. As is the code in the Rockchip repository.
    But the company took their code, removed the original attribution and
    licensing (LGPL), and put the result under an Apache licence, which is
    not compatible with the LGPL.

    Given that LGPL is a copyleft licence, and Apache is not, this could
    lead others to believe they could in turn take the Rockchip version of
    the code and develop it further and incorporate it into proprietary
    products without making any source available -- which is something
    copyleft is designed to prevent.

    Of course this action did not come out of the blue. The FFmpeg project
    had raised the issue with Rockchip back in 2024, but in the absence of
    any progress since that time, they felt that action had to be taken.
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